FEMA

Monday is the last day Missourians affected by the mid-winter floods can apply for federal aid.

According to Federal Emergency Management Administration spokesperson, John Mills, FEMA teams have canvassed all the neighborhoods known to have been impacted by the floods and handed out application instructions in English and Spanish.

Updated 10:45 a.m., Jan. 24 with information from FEMA—Hundreds of thousands of federal dollars are available to Missourians whose homes were damaged in flooding between Dec. 23 and Jan. 9, now that President Barrack Obama has declared 33 counties a major disaster area.

But figuring out whether you qualify for aid can be confusing. So we enlisted the help of Jono Anzalone, who oversees American Red Cross disaster relief for Missouri, to create a FAQ for FEMA applications.

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: WASHINGTON – With the price of flood insurance on the rise and climate change likely to worsen Midwest flooding, a scientific panel wants federal emergency officials to modernize the outmoded tools used to analyze the probability and impact of floods.

Such a change, if adopted by FEMA, could have major consequences in Missouri and Illinois, where debates over flood insurance, FEMA flood mapping, and flood damage from the Mississippi and Missouri rivers have dominated much of the discussion in the Metro East and other low-lying regions.

Missouri Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder is asking the State Emergency Management Agency to explain why the St. Louis suburb of Bridgeton has not received $500,000 in FEMA funds to help it recover from the 2011 Good Friday tornado.

Missouri is getting more than $5 million from the federal government to help in the long-term recovery for people hit by tornadoes and flooding.

The grant announced Wednesday from the Federal Emergency Management Agency will be available to help people hit by tornadoes in the Joplin and St. Louis areas, as well as flooding along the Mississippi River and in southern Missouri.

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Dec. 5, 2012 - WASHINGTON - From historic floods in the Midwest to destructive clusters of tornadoes in the mid-South to drought-related fires sweeping across Texas, the number of officially declared U.S. disasters reached a new record this year.

While those natural disasters in the United States play only a small role in the World Meterological Organization's (WMO) report on extreme weather events in 2011, there is a tendency to try to link the underlying weather patterns to changes in the global climate.

It’s scheduled for 1:00 p.m. Central Standard Time on Wednesday, November 9th, and will be broadcast over every radio station, TV station and cable network across the country. Mike O’Connell with the Missouri Department of Public Safety says state officials are helping spread the word, so that residents don’t mistake the test for a real emergency.

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Sept. 6, 2011 - WASHINGTON - Maps, money and subsidies are the major issues in the debate over renewing the nation's troubled flood insurance program, which is inundated by $18 billion in red ink and needs congressional action by month's end to stay afloat.

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Sept. 2, 2011 - WASHINGTON - A "perfect storm" of disasters and budget woes is high-pressuring Congress to confront hard choices on how to replenish the federal government's rapidly dwindling disaster emergency fund at a time of troubling deficits.

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Aug. 29, 2011 - U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said today that she is feeling better about the Federal Emergency Management Agency's plans for assisting Joplin, Mo., after agency officials have assured her and others that they are simply planning to delay some aid to Joplin, Mo. -- where a deadly tornado struck May 22 -- to pay for damage caused by Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene, which struck the East Coast over the weekend.

Gov. Jay Nixon announced Friday that eligible residents of Andrew, Atchison, Buchanan, Holt, Lafayette and Platte counties can seek federal assistance uninsured property that was lost to the flood. Eligible expenses include temporary housing, home repair, and the replacement of household items.

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Aug. 4, 2011 - The federal government has denied Gov. Jay Nixon's request to extend the Expedited Debris Removal Program, in which the federal government pays 90 percent of the cost of debris removal through next Sunday -- the 75th day after a tornado ravaged the city of Joplin, Mo., killing more than 150 people.

As a result of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's decision, as of next Monday, the federal share of the costs drops to 75 percent -- dramatically increasing the costs for the state of Missouri, which is footing the rest of the bill.

U.S. District Judge J. Phil Gilbert called the lawsuit moot Monday, after the Federal Emergency Management Agency said in court it had no plans to pull the accreditation of the region's levees as part of a levee-mapping effort.

The city of Joplin is off the hook for paying for the first couple of months of debris removal following a devastating tornado in May.

The federal government is paying 90 percent of the cost in the hard-hit area designated for the Federal Emergency Management Agency's enhanced cleanup payments, instead of the usual 75 percent. The state will be picking up the 10 percent not covered by FEMA under the expedited debris removal program that runs through next Sunday. Mo. Gov. Jay Nixon said two-thirds of the properties have been cleared so far.